Furnace Repair in Marion, IL
Furnaces here run from October through April. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Williamson County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Seven months of heat puts a lot of hours on your furnace
From October through April your furnace is what stands between the house and a 27°F night. That means long stretches where it cycles on and off for hours at a time, and every one of those cycles asks the igniter to do its job again. Igniters and flame sensors are usually the first things to fail after a few winters of that kind of work.
Most homes here heat with electricity, so a power outage doesn't just leave the house dark, it leaves the furnace unable to run at all. Williamson County has seen 14 winter storms and 88 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and in 2024, 16% of households in Illinois went at least 24 hours without power. When the power comes back, a furnace that was already struggling may not start on its own.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 27°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 14 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
Williamson County sets its own rule instead of the state, so whether a furnace repair company needs a local license depends on the town the house is in. Some towns require one, some do not, and there is no statewide test or record behind any of it. What protection exists comes from the town, not from Illinois.
For a furnace repair, the gas connection is the part that matters most, since a bad one is what makes the job dangerous. Where a town license applies, that license is what stands behind the work. Where no town rule applies, nothing does.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to heat and the temperature is above room temperature, and change the batteries if it uses them. If the thermostat looks right, check your breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will shut the whole system down. Furnaces also won't start if the air filter is badly clogged or if a safety switch on the unit has tripped. If power and the thermostat both check out, the furnace needs a contractor to look at the ignition system or the control board.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often the blower is running before the burners have caught, which is normal for the first minute or so of a cycle. If cold air keeps coming after that, the igniter or flame sensor may be failing, so the burners never light at all. A clogged filter can also cause this, because it starves the burners of the airflow they need to run properly. If changing the filter doesn't fix it, the furnace needs a contractor to check the ignition system.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple has worn out. It's the small sensor that tells the gas valve a flame is present, and once it fails, the valve shuts gas off as a safety measure even though the pilot lit for a moment. A draft blowing out the pilot or a dirty pilot orifice can cause the same problem. Either way, this is a gas component, so have a contractor replace or clean the part rather than relighting it repeatedly.